Various types of packaging members with means for allowing the members to be opened easily have been provided. Such packaging members have been realized as a packaging bag with an easy-opening portion and a packaging container with a pinching portion for easier opening operations.
Specifically, the packaging bag is formed to have an easy-opening portion at a desired position on a predetermined end thereof. The easy-opening portion serves as a tearing start portion for the bag. Hence tearing the bag at the easy-opening portion makes it possible to easily open the packaging bag. Such containing bags include a bag equipped with a notch or a rough surface portion at a predetermined position on a side edge thereof, or a bag with zigzag-shaped gathers formed at predetermined positions on the upper and lower ends thereof.
Such packaging bag is excellent in that, since the easy-opening portion is formed at a position on the perimeter edge of the bag, such as a side end or the upper and lower ends thereof, the bag can be opened very easily.
However, although such a packaging bag could be opened easily, there is a possibility that the bag might be opened accidentally so that its contents are taken out. For example, in the case that the packaging bag with the rough surface portion on a side edge thereof contains medicine, the bag might be opened accidentally by a small child playing with the packaging bag.
Meanwhile, the packaging container with the pinching portion has also been known widely.
Such packaging container is made of a rectangular laminate film material. Specifically, the laminate film material is formed into a cylinder by mutually overlapping two longitudinal side ends of the laminate film material in a palm-to-palm manner. Then, both palm-to-palm portions of the cylinder are joined to each other to have a palm-to-palm joined portion. The palm-to-palm joined portion is then folded toward a main part of the cylinder. One of openings at both ends of the cylinder is closed to form a sealed portion, and in this state, kneaded food, such as sweet jelly of beans, is pressure-filled into the cylinder from the remaining other opening of the cylinder which has not closed yet. Finally, the other opening is closed to form a sealed portion as well, so that the packaging container is entirely formed into a box shape.
The packaging container is normally formed by the laminate film material having damp-proofing and sealing characteristics, and the strength of the palm-to-palm joined portion is also set to a higher value. Thus, the packaging container pressure-filled with kneaded food, such as sweet jelly of beans, is composed so that it cannot be opened easily at the palm-to-palm joined portion.
However, there is a problem that extracting contents from the container is troublesome, because when a user wants to open the packaging container, the user must cut its palm-to-palm joined portion by using an edged tool such as scissors.
In order to solve the foregoing problem, there has been developed a packaging container formed with two cutting portions across the palm-to-palm joined portion thereof. The two cutting lines cross the palm-to-palm joined portion to extend closely to a folding line of the main body of the container, where the two cutting lines face a further cutting line formed at a position near the folding line of the main body. Such a cutting-line formation allows the container to be torn at the palm-to-palm joined portion in an easier manner, so that the container can be opened.
One such practical packaging container has been proposed by Japanese Patent Publication (Laid-open) No. 9 (1997)-104449. According to the publication, the packaging container is formed in a box shape by joining side ends of a laminate film material in a palm-to-palm manner to form a cylindrically shaped body, and by joining circular openings at both ends of the cylindrically shaped body. Two cutting portions are formed at intervals from an end of the palm-to-palm joined portion so as to produce a pinching portion. A fractured straight line is formed in the main part of the laminate film material closely to, but in parallel with a folding line of the main part. Hence contents in the container can be taken out by opening the container along a circumference thereof with pulling the pinching portion outwardly.
The fractured straight line is effective for opening the packaging container, because tearing and pulling outwardly the pinching portion along in a circumferential direction of the container will open the container. However, there is still a possibility that the fractured straight line formed in the main part may be torn when its palm-to-palm joined portion is folded to the main part with a positioning-reliance board applied to the folding line of the palm-to-palm joined portion. Hence there arises a problem that the containers may become defective goods.